Description:
In Henry Jenkins's piece, "Star Trek, Rerun, Reread, Rewritten," he assesses the purpose and meaning behind why fans write fan fiction. Often times fans are criticized for having little respect for the original creations, or even that they are purposely changing and destroying every aspect of the original piece. Instead, Jenkins encourages audiences to understand that the purpose of fan fiction writing is to adapt original pieces into the needs of the reader. For example, in a changing culture, many writers try to work in feminist aspects to mainly male dominant works.
Here, I too, am adapting an aspect of House of Cards that I found to be troubling so to let it fit my own needs as a piece of the audience. In watching this series, I found Frank's personality to be specifically interesting. He seems to have no relationships with anyone without the alliance in some way benefiting himself. Even Claire, isn't solely because he loves her, he benefits from having her around. However, he seems to get very little from Freddy Hayes and that is a relationship of his I found to be curious. I understand that Freddy was in prison years before he opened his barbecue joint, the reason was never addressed. I find their relationship to be odd, and in this piece, I attempt to explain a reason why this is such an anomaly of a relationship for Frank.
"You're a good customer, Frank, you're a real good customer." Freddy was practically beaming. He knew his ribs were good, but not the kind of good that gets noticed by representatives, senators, heck, even presidents.
Frank knew they were good too, but not the kind of good that gets noticed on their own, and certainly not the kind of good to be eaten weekly, no, that's like asking for a heart attack. He sat there staring at an empty rack of ribs and looking at the sauce all over his hands, reminded him of blood, he always seemed to have blood on his hands.
There are the kinds of people that find power to be a drug, and when handed power they change, they become ruthless, desperate for more, even if it does leave blood on their hands. However, Frank was born with it. Power didn't make him ruthless. The need for power didn't make him desperate. Sitting there waiting through the digestion of the third rack of ribs that month, he remembered far too well why he always returned to this place, why he couldn't let it be. You see, even ruthless people have remorse, but not too much, and not all at once.
It was 1985, in Gaffney, South Carolina, an impoverished town with a culture to show it. The center of town was a typical beat up hubbub of drugs, gangs, crime, you name it. Just outside the city, was mostly tracks of unwelcomed farmland, one of which belonged to his father.
He ran a successful peach farm, just about the only things that found itself to be successful in that town. Frank wanted nothing more than to leave, do something with his life, but for the time being he was employed by this success. Any sort of manual labor was beneath him, he found it arbitrary and a servant's level of work. Instead, he served as the accountant, doing the same kind of work he had been just a year earlier at a law firm.
It wasn't an ideal job, certainly not for Frank, but it was paid, and he needed that money. The following year his goal was to run for state representative, that wasn't possible without a little extra cash.
Every week, Frank would sort through files of bills, paychecks, and profit margins. After awhile, he began to notice weeks of extreme profit and he started to take notes. His hours at the office became longer and more frequent. When his confidence grew enough, he began taking out shares of cash each week that would be written as an additional paycheck to one of their "new employees." The envelope would be signed, sealed, and delivered weekly as normal, by the rib man himself, Freddy Hayes.
Just a year earlier, Frank had come in contact with Freddy. He worked at a privatized delivery service specified for delivering paychecks, tax forms, and other official documents for local businesses, at the time including Frank's law firm. Frank suggested using this service, to save money that is. Sure enough, in only a few weeks, Freddy was delivering paychecks for the Underwood peach farm as well.
Around the same time, Frank opened a bank account in the name of Frederick Hayes, with routing information going to a foreign bank, Freddy would never know. Even in delivering the checks, the envelope was always addressed to a P.O. Box, not Freddy's home. Each week, when the "new employee" got his paycheck, the money would be transferred to a foreign account. It was a flawless plan. Freddy was paid by his delivery service, not the peach farm so it never appeared that he was paid twice, but still had connection to the checks in case something was to go wrong.
About every month or so for an entire year, Frank took the money out of the account to turn it for profit, just like he had seen his law firm colleagues do, with cocaine. In a town like Gaffney, it was simple. Find a dealer, which Frank had, buy, and sell. Frank knew exactly who to target, he found a way to contact his old colleagues, the rich drug addicts always looking for something, and it was perfect. A weekly paycheck expanded to ten times that with ease.
It wasn't perfect forever, though. Tax season came around, and things started to get tricky. Frank's father had hired another accountant to make some professional calls on filing for tax returns. Frank got antsy, he couldn't sit and watch his possibly imperfect system pull him down for good. One late night, about a week before the accountant was coming in, he called his father into the office, saying he had discovered an issue with the paychecks, someone was laundering money and he knew exactly who it was, Freddy Hayes.
The accusation wasn't enough at first to send Freddy away, but Frank had covered his tracks like a real crook. There was no sign left that he was involved. With $100,00 left in the foreign account, and more than twice that sitting under Frank, Freddy Hayes was sentenced to 7 years of jail and three months later, Frank successfully ran and entered the world of politics.
Frank wasn't a good customer, he knew that. He had ruined a mans life, and it wasn't the first or last time he would do that either. He did what he had to do. He was ruthless, but most people are. Frank just happened to be born this way.
Just like that, he wiped his hands off with the napkins sitting next to him, left his empty plate on the table, grabbed his suitcase and newspaper, and left. But he'd be back, he would always come back.